


oh there is nowhere I would rather be

by Bluejay141519



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Clairvoyance, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, More tags to be added, Team as Family, hockey is hard okay, i took one look at this mans under eye circles and said let me write 20k about it, minor injury, taking naps together as a love language, very vague rules on how everything works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28863588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluejay141519/pseuds/Bluejay141519
Summary: Quinn’s been dealing with this his entire life. He doesn’t understand why it’s just now getting worse.Jordie walks by and ruffles his hair. “Jesus Quinner you look like a zombie, don’t you ever sleep?”Across the locker room, Petey looks at him with narrowed eyes, careful and scrutinizing.Because Petey knows.Quinn sleeps all the time.He just can't stop dreaming.
Relationships: Quinn Hughes & Jack Hughes, Thatcher Demko/Quinn Hughes
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	oh there is nowhere I would rather be

**Author's Note:**

> well im just. horrible. 
> 
> This was supposed to be up 20 days ago and its still not finished. Which is really embarrassing but I've been continually working on part two, so hopefully that's up before the end of the month. 
> 
> Also I screwed up the time line here, so this is also an AU as if Quinn just went out and played for the Canucks right after being drafted. 
> 
> With that said, I really REALLY hope that the wait was worth it!! Please enjoy!!
> 
> {{warning at the end!}}

As long as Quinn can remember, he’s dreamed.

It’s a normal thing, he knows. People dream all the time. Some people never remember them, not even once, and some people dream every night and wake up remembering. “I had such a weird dream last night,” they say. They can’t quite remember details and most of the time, the more they talk about it, the more they think about it, the more they lose their grip on it.

Quinn doesn’t dream every night. But he remembers them. He never loses them.

As long as Quinn can remember, he’s dreamed; but the first time he remembers his dream coming true, he was eight. He fell asleep on the couch after playing outside with his little brothers. He fell asleep with his muddy boots still on.

He dreamed that he was going to get yelled at. That his mom would come in and yell at him because of the dirt he tracked across the floor, and his dad would come in and laugh because Quinn was still asleep when his mom scolded him. His dad would laugh and Quinn would wake up and his mom would let it go, just this once, so long as Quinn took his shoes off and swept up the dirt. 

And then Quinn _woke up_ , and his dad was laughing and his mom-

“ _Am I in trouble?” He asks._

_“Not if you clean up your mess right now,” she says, her voice firm but her expression one Quinn’s learned to mean she loves him, even when he annoys her._

Quinn remembers. He thought it was so weird, that he watched it happen before it did. But he was a kid, he didn’t think anything of it. He didn’t think it was weird, not the second time or the third or the fourth. 

He got older, and he learned what deja vu was. He thought he just experienced it a lot. People dreamed all the time. Quinn wasn’t any different.

Then he turned thirteen, and his parents thought he was old enough to watch his brothers for a few hours. Two nights before they were supposed to go on a date he dreamed - he _saw_ \- Jack climb up onto the counter to get a mug for hot chocolate, overestimate the amount of counter space he had, fall, and break his arm. He saw the whole thing, the aftermath too, because he was _scared_. 

He had to know what happened. He saw Luke start crying because Jack was crying and he saw himself sobbing and apologizing to his mother at the emergency room.

Quinn woke up so exhausted he fell asleep during first period. He thought about asking his parents to just get a babysitter or maybe to not go at all, because then he wouldn’t have to hear his little brother yell in pain and he wouldn’t have to hear his mother asking him “ _What were you doing? Why weren’t you watching him?”_ like it was his fault. 

In the end he doesn’t say anything at all. He figures he can stop it, since he knows how it’ll go. He’ll just get the mug for Jack, and then Jack won’t climb up and he won’t fall.

He does just that, and Jack falls anyway.

His parents left, and when Luke wanted hot chocolate, Quinn got the stool and got them all mugs. And then he went to the bathroom while the water boiled, and then he felt a shiver, heard a thump, and then -

Jack _screamed_ and Quinn _knew_.

“ _What were you doing? Quinn, you were supposed to be watching them! They’re your little brothers, you’re supposed to take care of them!”_

_Quinn can’t stop crying, he can’t stop apologizing, because he knows, he knows he’s supposed to protect them, he knows. He knew this was going to happen and he was supposed to stop it and now Jack can’t play hockey and it’s all his fault._

It gets worse, after that. 

Not that people get hurt, but that for a while he thinks it’s inevitable that they will. He dreams, sometimes twice a week, sometimes once a month, but he dreams and he remembers them. Each time he dreams, it takes so much out of him, like he never slept at all. The REM cycle, the thing that’s supposed to provide the most rest for human beings, is the thing that drains Quinn more than any hockey game ever could.

He dreams of a lot of things - sometimes it’s of hockey, random parts of games that he can’t recognize, that he doesn’t remember playing. The jerseys are unfamiliar. He never understands what they’re saying. Sometimes it’s of his family, his parents going for a walk, Luke acing a test he was worried about.

Sometimes the dreams are just tiring. Sometimes he doesn’t care if they come true, sometimes he even wants them to. But sometimes - sometimes it’s-

Sometimes it’s Jack breaking his arm. It’s Quinns captain twisting his knee and being out for the season, maybe even losing his career. It’s his parents fighting in their kitchen. His grandmother getting sick. It’s bad things, and he hates them, because he doesn’t think he can change them.

Until he’s fifteen, and he sees his teacher - his favorite teacher, his math teacher who never seems disappointed in him for needing extra help or for getting answers wrong and who always says she’s proud of him even when he barely passes a test - she gets in a car accident and it’s bad, it’s _bad_ and Quinn closes his eyes and wills himself to wake up.

He presses a hand to his mouth to stifle his sobs and cried the rest of the night. That day in school he tells her to drive careful. 

The day after that, there’s a substitute in class, who tells them that she was in an accident. Quinn nearly throws up on his desk. His hands don’t stop shaking the whole day and he skips hockey practice to go straight home. 

That’s when Jack finds out. Or something. Quinn tells Jack then, but he doesn’t think Jack believes him until much later.

Jack doesn’t believe him, because he heard from their mom who heard from another mom who heard from a teacher at the school that it was a mandated absentee day. That the accident was actually pretty minor, but she needed stitches and since it was a Friday anyway she didn’t come in the next day. The school had wanted her to stay home since she had to go to the hospital. 

“ _It’s just like a cut on her arm or something Quinner, stop freaking out so much. She’s fine.”_

_“But I saw-“_

_“Dude, it was just a freaky dream. It didn’t come true. Stop losing your shit and we can go convince mom to order pizza for dinner.”_

Quinn learned a lot from that time. One: if he wanted to, he could wake up from a dream. Two: he _could_ change them. They weren’t prophetic, they were warnings. Something that might happen. 

(When his teacher came back, he told her that he was glad she was alright. She gave him a strange look and said that it would’ve been worse if she had been going faster - that she stayed below the speed limit because of what he said to her.)

Quinn started getting multiple scenarios after that. Like once his brain learned there were other options, it set out trying to show him those options. He’d see three or four different results of games he would play, different endings to conversations, different places his family went out to eat. He learned, slowly, that he could choose which one came true.

The dreams stayed steady, so much so that he could almost make a schedule to predict when they would occur. Every once in a while he’d have weird ones, like when he was smaller. Ones that were fuzzy, that didn’t quite make sense. Those, he thought, were normal dreams. When he saw something in his dreams, it was clear. Like watching a movie.

These other dreams, they were blurry at the edges. Parts of games that he didn’t remember, faces he couldn’t recognize and unfamiliar jerseys, but team outings too. They left him with feelings - a hazy image of a restaurant table was accompanied by content, a roaring crowd left him euphoric, a warm hug made him feel safe.

Laughter, accompanied with a warmth in his chest so strong it felt like love. 

But he never saw those more than once. He never understood them either. That was really the thing about these dreams. They were something Quinn always had. 

He didn’t know why he had them. He didn’t know how they worked. He didn’t know how to get rid of them. If he was honest...he didn’t know if he wanted to. They’d saved his ass more than a few times, knowing, at least, what not to do. He didn’t always get it right - sometimes he did his best to avoid a particular future, and it would happen anyway. 

Which is why the scariest moment of Quinn’s life was his draft. Because a week before the dreams stopped completely.

Nothing. Not even a little whisper of what was to come. 

He was drafted a Canuck with terror in his chest, floundering around in the unknown because he always thought- well he’d never seen himself in the NHL, and he was so scared that the dreams stopped because he wasn’t meant to keep them, he wasn’t meant to go farther than the draft. 

But he got drafted. He got drafted, and two days later he dreamed again. He dreamed, but only those fuzzy ones. A bright smile, a warm hug, sunlight coming through a half closed curtain and happiness, happiness, _love_.

Then he went to training camp. 

Then Quinn met Thatcher Demko.

Then the dreams stopped being the first thing on his mind.

…

He doesn’t quite know he got here, but like everything in life, he sort of just rolls with it.

“I mean I don’t even use the room, and it would be great to have someone else to eat the food in the fridge before it goes bad, but like if you don’t want to-“

“Petey,” Quinn says, voice and face carefully void of emotion. “I cannot express how much I fucking love you right now. Where the hell do I sign, or whatever.”

He’s rooming with Elias Pettersson. So there’s one issue down. The next would be surviving training camp. 

Petey grins like the Cheshire Cat before he turns to the busy locker room and yells at Chris Tanev. “The rookie is mine, asshole!”

There is a mass of protests that surprises Quinn. It dies down enough for him to hear Tanner’s reply, “That’s not fair, I didn’t even get to meet him yet!”

Quinn frowns. Chris is wrong, they have met, but it was for about three seconds, just long enough to shake hands and exchange names. He does raise an interesting discrepancy though - all the outcomes Quinn saw had him rooming with the veteran. He doesn’t know why Petey offered - he doesn’t know why he said yes. He wanted to board with Chris. They were going to have legendary card games.

It was like for a few seconds he wasn’t thinking at all, which is so weird, because he’s always hyper aware of what’s going on. A lot of his dreams dont give good context, so he can’t tell when they’re going to happen. He operates by searching for little bits of conversation, checking what outfits people are wearing, whether it’s morning or night, game day or not. He has to know when certain things are happening, so that if he needs to, he can stop whatever is _about_ to happen.

This doesn’t seem so bad though. He can’t imagine rooming with Petey will be any more of an adjustment than when he used to room with teammates on the road. He’ll just get his own room this time.

So that’s cool, but. Weird.

A ball of tape thwacks Quinn in the face, forcing him to zone back into the conversation. “Oh shit, sorry that was for- ah.” He looks up to see another vaguely familiar face, this one looking rather sheepish. Although given the super padded hockey pants he’s got on, and it’s definitely not Markstrom, this must be-

“Thatcher Demko.” A hand is stuck in his face. “We haven’t officially met yet.”

“Oh,” Quinn frowns but shakes his hand. He thought he met most of the team, although it’s camp, there’s a lot of people. His arm is tired from the number of hand shakes he’s had to give. “I’m-“

“I know who you are.” Thatcher hurries out, then seems to wince. Petey turns and gives the back up goalie a strange look, complete with a singular raised eyebrow. Thatcher actually seems to blush slightly before giving an awkward little wave and just about sprinting from the locker room. 

That’s...even more weird. So much so that he even says it out loud.

Petey and Brock exchange a glance over Quinns head before turning back to their stalls. Quinn’s been ready for ten minutes now, too nervous to do anything else. “That’s just goalies. I’d thought you’d be used to that, being a d-man and all.”

“Yeah,” Quinn mumbles. “No, I’ve just- I’ve never seen him before.”

He hasn’t. After the draft, he started getting dreams that were all about the Canucks. Some of the fuzzy dreams sharpened too - team dinners with faces he now knows, green and blue jerseys on the players around him during games. In fact, now that he’s thinking about it, every dream he had about today never showed Demko at all - it was always meeting Chris Tanev, getting talked into rooming with him, and then some sort of weird conversation between Elias and Brock. 

It’s his turn to receive a strange look from Petey. “You’ve never seen him? You didn’t google all of us after you were drafted?”

“Oh I did I-“ Quinn cuts himself off with a sigh as Petey grins at him. Brock laughs, and the chirps start flying instantly at him. He’s saved by someone yelling at them to hurry up. Quinn pulls off his skate guards and follows everyone as they start to trickle out to the ice. 

Thatch ends up right in front of him as he tries to exit the locker room. They both apologize at the same time and Thatcher shuffles around him quickly. Quinn knows at least to keep his head down. He’s fully aware of his rookie status and is trying to make as little noise as possible. 

So he doesn’t understand why the goalie sounded nervous around _him_.

“Young love,” Brock sighs dramatically, waltzing past Quinn who’s still staring at the doors. Petey follows, tapping Boeser’s shin guards with his stick. “Yeah, remember what that was like?” 

Quinn blinks, head tilted slightly towards them. He replays the words, the exchange that wasn’t between him and Thatch, the whole last five minutes. 

That was odd. No, that was _different_. It matches something like what his dreams had shown him, and it is a weird thing to say, but it’s not what Quinn saw. It’s not what he dreamed. 

He’s never had that before. He’s never dreamed of different futures and still not had any singular one come true, not without interference. 

Not once.

“But I didn’t change anything,” he mumbles to himself. 

The suddenly empty hallway offers no answers. He shrugs and makes his way towards the rink. He’s got other things to deal with, like making sure certain other dreams come true.

...

_“Are you freaking out?”_

“No,” Quinn hisses, way too fast. Jack laughs in response.

“ _Hey it’s your first game, totally understandable._ ” He would be more convincing if Jack wasn’t also barely suppressing the glee in his voice. “ _I hope you’re ready for the rookie lap. Please make sure you don’t fall on your face in front of thousands of fans and mom, I might pass out from laughter.”_

“Why are you acting like you won’t have to do the same thing a year from now?”

“ _I never said I wouldn’t have to do it, I’m just strongly implying that I will be much more graceful at it than you._ ”

“Fuck off,” Quinn grumbles, inspecting the tape on his stick. He’d wrapped it up three different times but maybe he should do it again after warmups. “This is so stupid why did you call me five minutes before the game?”

“ _Hey, you made the stupid decision to pick up! I was fully prepared to leave a message.”_

“The very first game we play, I’m going to break your ankles.” Actually Quinn’s pretty sure he’s gonna flip Jack on his face, but still. 

“ _Go get ‘em, tiger!_ ”

Quinn hangs up on him and doesn’t feel bad about it.

…

Rooming with Elias has simultaneously been the best and worst thing for Quinn. The best, because Quinn is ninety-nine percent sure Elias is dating Brock. Or they’re at least boning. Something, because he’s over at Brocks all the damn time. When he’s not over Brock’s place, Brock is at theirs. 

So it’s the best, because Quinn gets the apartment to himself a lot. The worst, because when Brock is over, Quinn...runs. He stayed the first few times, but after one incident where he took his headphones off to walk to the kitchen and he heard _that_ he learned to simply exit the building when Brock entered.

It was better for his sanity that way, and he needs something to keep him sane, because it’s his rookie year in the NHL, he’s stressed enough as it is, but to add in the things he sees when he sleeps, he- 

Frankly, he’s a mess. And it’s a very Quinn-specific level of “I’m a damn mess” because Quinn is a mess on a normal day. At this point, it’s part of his personality. He’s pretty sure their trash bins are more organized and put together than he is.

He does need _something_ though, and Jack is busy with the whole ‘about to be drafted’ thing. Plus, he’s the only one who really knows about Quinn’s dreams. He’d just as easily talk to one of his current teammates than he would Luke or his parents, since he’d have to explain and then prove somehow that he’s not just hallucinating. 

He almost does that, though. Because the thing with the NHL - or hell, just with hockey - it can be incredibly lonely. It’s why people get so confused about the whole ‘team is everything’ mentality. Quinn’s been playing hockey his whole life, but he’s always had his brothers. 

Now, he doesn’t. So that just leaves his team. His team, who clearly understand how hard it is to transition into the NHL, because they make him do _everything_. And he means everything.

It seems as the rookie, that’s his requirement. Do everything, go everywhere, meet everyone. It doesn’t matter if it’s a team activity or a small dinner, everyone wants to get to know him, to meet him, _what’s up Quinner, how do you like the big leagues, are you fitting in okay, do you need help?_

He’s pretty sure that if he didn’t move in with Petey the same day he asked, there would’ve been a fight over who got to house him.

It is great, this hockey version of speed dating his teammates. He figures out who to hang out with when he needs certain things. Which he supposes sounds pretty shitty, but it works. Like. Really well. 

If he wants to get out of the apartment but he wants dinner, he goes to Tanev’s house. If he wants out of the apartment _overnight_ , he goes to Bo’s house. If he wants to get a little tipsy, he goes with Brock and Petey to Stetcher’s place. It’s kinda of awesome.

It’s also exhausting, because it’s the god damn NHL. Quinn’s still having dreams, and more often than not now, they’re bad. They’re things he needs to fix. And they’re exhausting, too. So Quinn’s tired all the damn time, and it becomes a bit of a thing, how he looks like he’s always in need of a nap.

But Quinn’s in the National Hockey League. And one thing they do here? They nap.

A lot.

Which is what Quinn would like to do, would even normally do, except that he doesn’t sleep with headphones on. When it’s dead quiet in his room, he can hear everything in his apartment.

Everything.

He cannot sleep hearing whatever the _hell_ Brock and Petey are doing, so he has to go somewhere else most of the time. Which means he needed someone else’s place to stay at. Operation ‘integrate the new rookie defenseman into the team dynamic’ has clearly worked, because Quinn knows. 

If he wants to sleep, he goes to see Thatch.

Thatch is...normal. For a goalie anyway. In fact, Thatch is probably Quinn’s favorite person, because he’s quiet and a little shy and he smiles a lot. He makes really bad jokes that make Quinn laugh. He doesn’t ask questions when Quinn shows up at his apartment with a pillow and PJs.

“I gotta admit, I kinda thought this might’ve been an issue.” Thatch mumbles around some popcorn. It’s mid November, which apparently means they just absolutely _must_ marathon the Lord of the Rings trilogy. 

Quinn’s never seen Lord of the Rings, but he’s decided that they they aren’t a trilogy. They’re six movies that were combined into three. A movie that’s four hours long is ridiculous and he will die on this hill.

But Thatcher lets him stay on his couch and he doesn’t care that Quinn’s listed sideways until he’s using Thatch’s thigh as a pillow. So he’ll suffer it.

“What’s the issue?” he mumbles, half awake. 

“Petey and Brock.”

Thatch seems tense for some reason, and Quinn tenses right along with them. He figures this was coming, but he thought from Elias himself, or maybe Bo. “Yeah, they don’t understand volume control,” he grumbles.

Thatcher laughs, clearly relieved. “No, they don’t. You should make sure you knock any time you open any door. And clean all surfaces.”

Quinn makes a face in disgust just so he doesn’t let his shock show through. Thatcher isn’t exactly the little fish in the pond - right now that’s Quinn - but he isn’t someone Quinn would’ve thought to be close enough to Petey and Elias to know about them.

Which must mean that they’re out. To at least a good portion of the team. Quinn will have to have a conversation with Petey to understand exactly _who_ he should watch his words around, but they’re really. They’re a _thing_.

And the Canucks clearly don’t have a problem with it.

Quinn bites his lip to keep from smiling and does his best to focus on the movie and not the fact that he could- he could be _out_. With them, he could...he might not have to hide all the time. 

He comes back over every day that week to finish the trilogy. Every time he does, he ends up falling asleep curled around Thatch.

It’s kinda cool. The movie, that is.

…

Two months into the season, Quinn can honestly say that he still feels the same amount of adrenaline before games as he did his first. 

The good news is that Petey tells him that feeling doesn’t go away for a while, so he might as well get used to it.

Quinn has friends now too. He has to get used to that as well.

Petey, especially, apparently just decided they’d be friends, and that they’d been friends for years. So Petey drags Quinn out to go scootering, and Quinn, in revenge, scares the shit out of Petey whenever he drives to the rink.

Petey gives him a weird look the first time when Quinn tells him to _‘relax, I know nothing will happen’._ But other than that, Quinn thinks he hasn’t really slipped up about… anything.

Petey never asks him why he doesn’t ever pick up, but then, half the time Petey is doing whatever he does with Brock, Quinn is over at Thatcher’s or Tanev’s. Chris Tanev, who makes an _amazing_ cornish game hen. He didn’t even know what a Cornish game hen _was_ until he got here. 

But then again, he didn’t know there were semi-open gay relationships in the NHL, so really he’s got to learn to be more open-minded.

He still dreams - some weeks he gets up to three nights a week, scenario after scenario after scenario, _here’s what could be, here’s what could happen_ \- and he still wakes up afterwards exhausted like he never even closed his eyes.

He doesn’t ever dream of any one person, although sometimes he sees Jack and it feels like the focus is just on him. There might be other people there, but it’s always Jack and it’s always...mundane. Whenever he sees himself or his teammates it’s something important, like the consequences of a bad check or wrong play. But his brother is always...doing homework or something. 

Quinn texts him once the answer to a particular question. He’s been seeing Jack stuck on it four naps in a row, he’s _tired_ of it.

The other thing he’s been doing, besides being introduced to random foods and being terrorized by Brock (he came home the other night and got suplexed into the love seat because he forgot to get extra guac from chipotle) is hanging out with Thatcher.

In fact, he’s kinda made that his normal pass time. He goes over, they pick a show to not pay attention to, and Quinn inevitably sleeps. Although they don’t always stay in - sometimes they go to the little park by Thatch’s place and walk around or attempt a run. They went bowling once, which was hilarious since neither of them knew what the hell they were doing. Thatch gutter balled every other turn and Quinn almost threw a ball into the other lane.

They’ve seen two different movies together in the theater, during which Thatch kept checking to make sure Quinn was awake. Quinn laughed, but then Thatch joked that TV is Quinn’s kryptonite, since every time he turns it on while Quinn is over, Quinn inevitably ends up curled up in a ball under a blanket somewhere. 

The thing that Quinn realizes is that-

Thatcher Demko is pretty awesome. Like he’s really- he’s so-

Quinn really likes being around him. That’s something he can establish. Thatch is chill and he’s not too loud for Quinn’s already loud head and he kind of looks as if a bernese mountain dog was a human. He’s squishy too. His shoulder makes an excellent pillow.

Thatch is great for so many reasons but Quinn’s favorites are that he’s tall and he’s warm and he has an amazing couch and he doesn’t mind at all that Quinn falls asleep on him. Which is so good, he’s so good to Quinn, because when Quinn sleeps over Demmers house, he doesn’t dream.

At all.

And that’s _incredible_ , because Quinn’s- well. Dreaming, but not sleeping. He so badly wants to sleep, just all the time now, which means he’s at Thatch’s all the time. Thatch never calls him out on it, so Quinn just keeps showing up and keeps falling asleep on him and keeps going, because he’s not dreaming.

It’s when they’re halfway through February, out to eat but planning another meal over at Team Dad Tanev’s house, that Quinn realizes he might’ve been giving off the wrong idea.

It’s chaos, dinner out at some random restaurant on the road (and Quinn could swear he’s been here before, it’s like deja vu, but he knows he’s never dreamed this because he always remembers his dreams) and everyone’s talking over everyone when Chris turns to him and says, “I’ll let you drink, but either you stay over my place that night or you and Thatch get a ride home with someone sober.”

Quinn makes a face at the idea of having to stay over Tanner’s instead of Thatch’s and then realizes that...Chris didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t even ask if Quinn was going to go home with Thatch, or if he’d drive over with him. He just put Quinn and Thatch together.

Like they belong there or something.

Thatcher laughs, like it’s some kind of joke, and Quinn realizes he’s got an arm across the back of Quinns chair, and they look like- the team must think that hey-

_Oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck-_ Quinns thoughts loop around in a massive panic because no, no they aren’t but what the hell was Quinn doing, going over his goalie’s place almost every day, just to cuddle up with him on the couch and sleep?

“Huggy, you alright?” Thatch seems to notice his increased level of internal turmoil, because he leans over and asks. Quinn nearly startles out of his chair. God, he’s really been just- just leading Thatcher on like that, making him think that-

“I need- um.” He stares at Thatch with wide eyes. “I’m gonna- go. Yeah. I’ll see you guys later?” Not waiting for a reply he shoves back from the table and grabs his jacket, ignoring all the questions from the team. They hadn’t even gotten their food yet.

The walk back to the hotel doesn’t take long enough, so he flips up his hood and keeps walking, Edmonton’s freezing air biting at his skin. It’s barely November and it looks like it’s threatening to snow.

He tells himself the cold will help him think better and stuffs his hands in his pockets. His phone buzzes for a while, probably the team asking him if he’s okay. 

Quinn doesn’t answer them because he’s not. He’s not okay, he’s been leading Thatch on since he got to Vancouver, and apparently he’s convinced the entire team too that they’re a couple. And he didn’t even mean too.

He doesn’t _like_ Thatch. He doesn’t, not even in the slightest. 

Maybe. Ish? He doesn’t like-like Thatch, he’s pretty sure. 

He knows he likes Thatch as a friend. It’s just the other part, that deeper ‘liking’ that Quinn can never figure out. The one everyone seems to understand but Quinn. That feeling that people get that helps them draw a line between _‘friend’_ and ‘ _person I’d really like to date_ ’. Quinn doesn’t get that. But he does feels better around Thatcher, and he sleeps so great when he’s with Thatch, and they’ve shared a _fucking bed Jesus Christ._

(They were both too drunk to go home, and it wasn’t Thatch’s actual bed it was Tanev’s guest bedroom and it was kinda an accident because Thatch was already asleep and Quinn didn’t know he was in the bed until he climbed in and then he was too tired to get up. But _still_.)

Okay so he- he likes Thatch, but he doesn’t- not the same way. Thatch would probably want to do things with the person he was dating. He would probably want to do things with Quinn, and while Quinn doesn’t think Thatcher would get upset when Quinn explains to him that he doesn’t do that, has never wanted to do _that_ , he doesn’t think Thatch would stick around. No one else has, that’s for sure. 

It’s going to be so awkward, but he’s going to have to go back to that hotel and tell him that. Or, since they’re not actually dating and Quinn is somewhat of a scared mess, he could just. Stop hanging out with Thatch so much. 

Buy some better headphones and hang around his apartment more. Go play cards with Tanner. Maybe he’ll fucking read, or something equally stupid.

His phone buzzes again. Quinn finds a Tim Horton’s thats still open, orders because he’s fucking starving, and parks himself on a stool in the corner to scroll through his phone. There’s a bunch of individual texts from everyone, including a weird meme and a smiley face from Elias, a small paragraph from Bo, and about sixty one line texts from Thatch that were clearly sent in a panic. 

He scrolls past all of them to tap into a slightly older conversation.

_‘You up?’_

The text goes from delivered to read and then his phone instantly starts ringing. Quinn smiles wryly and answers it.

“ _You up? That’s what you went with? Jesus Quinner, you’re like a puck bunny.”_

Quinn rolls his eyes. “Hey Jack, how’s it going, how’s mom and dad?”

“ _They’re still in perpetual argument about whether or not Hawaiian pizza can pass through the front door, so I’d say they’re fine_.” 

He laughs, the noise strained even to his ears. Jack picks up on it. 

“ _I’m_ _gonna take it you’re not, since you’re calling me when I’d expect you to be asleep or eating or jerking off or something.”_

“You’re disgusting.”

“ _No, I’m realistic. So is this a dream thing?”_

A waiter brings over his food, and Quinn pauses to inhale a handful of fries. “No,” he mumbles. “Besides, I thought you didn’t believe me.”

“ _Are you kidding? I’ve believed you since like, six months after you told me the first time.”_

“Bullshit.”

“ _Not bullshit, you used to talk in your sleep,”_ Jack says _. “You fell asleep on the couch, I came home, and you, like, said this whole conversation that I didn’t understand but had my name in it. Two days later that exact same conversation happened between me and my teammate. I fucking believe you._ ”

Quinn pinches the bridge of his nose. “You could've told me that,”

_“I thought you knew! I always took your advice after that, even when I thought it was really stupid.’_

“No you didn’t- you know what, never mind, that’s not what this is about.”

“ _Okay, well make it quick I have to turn in this stupid paper by midnight.”_

He takes a deep breath. He wasn’t planning on coming out to his brother tonight but now that he had the chance he thought he’d might as well plow ahead before he psyched himself out. “Okay but you have to promise not to- I mean this only makes sense if you know, and I- I’ve never told anyone I’m-“

“ _Gay? I know.”_

Quinn blinks in confusion. “What? No! I mean yes, but not that’s not- how do you know?”

“ _Q, buddy, you’ve never brought home a girl. Ever. Not once. The last girlfriend I remember you having was in sixth grade. You literally were never once in any of the locker gossip ever, and as your brother, let me thank you graciously for that. I’m so glad to not have heard who you were screwing.”_

“Fuck off.” He mumbles, sticking a straw into his iced Capp. “I am- that.” He looks round the empty Tim Hortons just in case. “But that’s not why I didn’t bring home any girls.”

“ _Well, at least you won’t be breaking any hearts_.” Jack laughs. 

“What and you will?” He replies, a weak response to the chirp of his looks. 

“ _Uh_.” Jack says after a pause.

Quinn nearly chokes on a timbit. “Jack!”

“ _What, you can come out on a random Tuesday but I can’t? Get fucked bud, you aren’t special.”_

Quinn groans and rests his forehead in the hand not holding his phone. “Have you told...anyone”?

“ _Of course not,_ ” Jack says quietly. “ _Not even Luke._ ”

“That makes two of us, at least.”

“ _You said that wasn’t the issue, though. Or that wasn’t the thing?_ ”

“Yeah I’m- well okay first-“ Quinn takes a long sip of his drink. “I accidentally convinced the entirety of the Canucks that me and Thatch are dating, and that maybe includes Thatch himself.”

“ _Oh….wow, okay. That’s...a lot, how did you convince them you’re dating?”_

“I slept with him.”

Jack makes a noise in the back of his throat. “ _That would do it, I think._ ”

“No, no I- I didn’t- we didn’t have sex! I mean we literally fell asleep next to each other. Um. In the same bed.”

There’s dead silence.

“It was only once?” Quinn eakes out. “I just- it’s better, when I’m with him.”

_“You mean to tell me, that you literally got in this man’s bed and you didn’t have sex.”_

“Yes? No- I mean sorta-“

“ _You stay over his place a lot though_.”

“Yes.”

“ _Do you drive to and from the rink together?”_

“Yeah.”

“ _And this is the goalie you’re always sitting next to in all the pictures you send me.”_

Quinn winces. It sounds so much worse being spelled out like that. “Um…”

“ _So you’re practically dating him, but you just aren’t having sex.”_

He groans, chewing slowly on another timbit. “I guess, but I’m not dating him. I mean I- I’m just not. I can’t.”

“ _But you said you were better with him. You like him?”_

“I guess, yeah.”

“ _You know for a guy who dreams of the future, you’d think you would be a little more decisive.”_

“The future changes all the time.” Quinn mumbles, bundling up his trash and getting up to shove it in the trash can. There’s still a few chocolate timbits left, so he keeps the little container. Brock will be happy.

“ _So why aren’t you… I mean he’s a little older than you but, like, it’s not like you’re going to come out any time soon so why not go for it? He clearly likes you back.”_

He shoves open the door and pauses just outside, letting himself get used to the chill and trying to decide which secret to tell. He already came out once, and it’s got his hands shaking. Probably better not to further complicate things.

It’s a good enough excuse for tonight, anyway. 

“ _Quinn_?”

He swallows hard and kicks at a pebble before answering. “Because I have never, not once, seen him in my future.”

…

Bo is waiting for him when he gets back to the hotel. It makes Quinn stutter in his walk, seeing his captain sitting on one of the lobby couches, but Bo doesn’t chew him out or ask for a reason, just stands and requests that maybe next time Quinn suddenly decides he needs air, he texts Bo to let him know Quinn’s alive and okay.

“You don’t have to tell me where you’re going, but at least let me know when you’re coming back,” his mild mannered captain grumbles. “I went through fifteen levels of candy crush while trying to figure out how I was going to tell Coach that we lost our rookie.”

“Sorry,” Quinn mumbles, his shoulders up by his ears. Bo waves a hand at him and repeats his warning not to do it again and wanders over to the elevators. Quinn waits until he’s disappeared into one before he follows.

Brock was nice enough to room with him this trip instead of Petey, so naturally they’re both waiting on his bed when he walks in. Brock is also nice enough to accept the timbits in place of an explanation, but Petey does not. Seeing as they live together, and Elias isn’t one to let things go, Quinn knows he’s going to have to talk about it soon.

He really doesn’t want to though, so he sort of hides from Petey for the rest of the road trip. Hell, he’d probably keep hiding from Petey for the rest of the season, except that they share an apartment, and the one place that Quinn normally goes when he wants to get out is...Thatcher’s.

Which he can’t do. Because he’s hiding from Thatch as well.

The general problem with the rest of the team is that they’re both nosy and gossipers while somehow being the normal type of abrasive hockey player. They don’t do _feelings_. Elias and Brock get fined so much it nearly defeats the purpose of being a fine.

Also, the person he’d normally go to about emotional crap - or at least the person he’d think is the best at emotional crap - is the person he’s getting emotional _about_ , so. Up the creek without a paddle, as it were.

Because the other thing is that if he’s avoiding Thatch, then he’s no longer avoiding his dreams. He’s not getting the amount of rest that he’s used to, because when he naps he’s dreaming then too, and so he’s sleeping, but he’s not. 

It’s complicated. He hates it.

March...does not go well. Not at all.

The team isn’t all that different, except that they all seem to be looking at Quinn a little more, watching him a little closer. He knows they haven’t forgotten what happened at dinner that night, but they are being nice enough not to say anything. Or maybe Chris pulled the pseudo-dad card and told them all to fuck off, but either way - it’s nice that he doesn’t feel pressure to talk from the rest of the team.

Especially since he feels all sorts of pressure from his roommate.

It’s not that Petey is actually sitting him down and trying to make him talk, either, it’s more that he’s just there, all the time, with a little pointed quip or a narrowed-eyed look. It’s like he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with Quinn simply by staring at him.

Quinn is almost too tired to care most days.

Almost.

The thing that really gets him is Thatch. Their goalie, who walks around like a kicked puppy, and Quinn is the one who kicked him. He just about flinches when Quinn comes into the locker room, and he doesn’t say a word to anyone unless he absolutely has to. Thatch, his Thatch who was so kind to Quinn, who basically steadied Quinn when he was floundering and kept him grounded when he felt unfocused.

Thatch who Quinn hasn’t talked to in three weeks.

_Maybe_ he could deal with one of these things on it’s own - he could do the lack of sleep (not probable), he could ignore Petey (unlikely), or he could grow a pair and talk to Thatch (definitely not). Combine all three with the incredible new level of stress that is playing in the NHL it’s just not working.

So he snaps after a game one day, standing in his kitchen trying to boil water while Brock uses his shower. It’s not even the worst barb that Petey’s thrown at him either and Quinn knows that Elias is trying to protect his friend and rightfully believes Quinn is the one who hurt him, but he’s _tired_.

So _fucking_ tired.

“What does Brock want in his tea?” he mumbles, rooting around for the decaf stuff. He can’t believe they all turned into tea drinkers, but then that’s the magic of Thatch. 

“Honey and an explanation as to why you suddenly stopped being friends with Demmer,” Petey quips back and Quinn _can’t_.

“God can you stop trying to get in my fucking business?” he snarls, nearly tossing Brock’s mug onto the counter in aggravation.

“I will when you stop fucking with my goalie,” Elias replies easily, the steel in his tone stronger than Quinns. 

“I’m not fucking with him!” Quinn yells back, all his frustration from the past month bubbling up. “I can’t give him what he wants, okay?! This is the best I can do and if you could fuck off and stop digging up what happened maybe we’d be able to get over it!”

“Hey Huggy did you-” Brock walks into the kitchen then and stops, eyes wide. “I’ll- um. Go? Yeah.”

Quinn instantly deflates. Petey actually has the grace to look shocked, or least have his eyebrows raised in some semblance of the emotion. Shaking his head, Quinn points at the mug. “It’s ready.”

Brock seems to contemplate stepping further into the kitchen, but ultimately nods. “Thanks.” He sends Petey a sharp look then pointedly plants himself at the table with his mug.

Elias isn’t quelled in the slightest. “The best you can do is ignore him for three weeks with no explanation whatsoever?”

Quinn groans, thumping his head back against the cabinet. “He wants- you guys think we’re dating. He thought we were dating? I guess? But I...I can’t.”

“Can’t…?” Brock asks.

“Date him.”

Petey crosses his arms. “If this is some sort of gay crisis thing-”

“Or for the love of fuck,” Quinn snaps. “It’s not about me being gay! I’m fucking aware that I’m gay, Elias, I’ve known since I was six! But just because I’m gay, doesn’t mean I want the same things Thatch wants.”

“You could...always...tell him that…” Brocks says slowly, stirring honey into his tea while Elias makes a face at him. “I mean- I assume you didn’t, right?”

“I don’t want to hurt him worse,” Quinn huffs.

“I don’t think you could do much worse than what you’re doing now, so maybe tell him, give him time to get over _that_ , and then both of you can stop moping around like you’re being forced into retirement or something,” Petey grumbles, having sat down next to his boyfriend. Brock smiles at Quinn and punches Elias in the leg. 

“What he means is that right now Thatch has no idea what he did wrong and it’s killing him, so while it may suck, giving him a clear explanation will hurt a lot less in the long run,” Brock says gently. Quinn would like to lay it all out for him - Brock would totally be the best at listening and giving advice, but...he doesn’t know if that one goes very well. 

He realizes, after the fact, that he’s seen this conversation. Actually the tail end - Brocks words are like an echo in his memories. Quinn can’t remember if he ever got to see what happened after. He does remember that he’s never seen himself tell Brock or Petey about his dreams though.

He figures that Brock’s right anyway. He should tell Thatch. So to get a head start on that, he does the natural thing and goes to bed instead of dealing with his problems.

…

The irony of it all is that Quinn was ready to have a conversation with Thatch. He’d psyched himself up, he’d planned it out, he’d rehearsed it in the shower. He’d googled different ways to say ‘it's not you, its me’ without sounding like a dick.

He’d even run through it with Brock. He was good to go.

Then he walks into the rink and Thatch materializes out of thin air to grab his arm. He pulls Quinn into an empty equipment room, slams the door, and all of Quinns carefully planned dialogue flies out of his head.

“Okay look I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but if I did something I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to. And I realize that maybe if I did something wrong and haven’t figured it out that you might still be upset, but I can’t fix this if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Thatcher looks genuinely upset, which is completely understandable considering what Quinn’s put him through. It’s the fact that Thatch somehow looks _guilty_ that completely guts Quinn.

“It’s not- this isn’t your fault, I- I’m- you didn’t-“ Quinn stammers. “I’m going through some- shit.” 

Thatch blinks at him in surprise. Or maybe disbelief. “You haven’t talked to me for a month because you’re going...through something.”

_‘Technically, yes,’_ Quinn thinks as he nods. “I didn’t tell you, and I’m sorry about how I handled it. I just kind of...froze? I didn’t know what to do.” He swallows, shuffling his feet. “I still don’t.”

Thatch’s jaw works as he tries to digest Quinns bullshit explanation. “Then I’m sorry you couldn’t tell me,” he manages, voice wavering. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t help.”

Quinn makes a noise in his throat. This is so much worse than he thought it would be, Thatch wasn’t supposed to blame _himself_. “No, this isn’t your fault, okay? This is me being an asshole because I can’t deal with confrontation that I can’t see.”

He flinches after he speaks. He understands that sounded weird, and it’s going to be hard to explain, but it’s true. That’s one of the reasons Quinn hasn’t been able to say anything, he’s never dreamed of this conversation. He’s never seen if it could go good or bad or somewhere inbetween and he’s been scared of that unknown. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s like he’s floundering in the dark with Thatch, when he’s used to having a flashlight to see the way with everyone else.

“Well,” Thatch drags a hand through his greasy hair. “Can you...stop? I’m no expert but I think isolating yourself doesn’t help when it comes to dealing with most life problems.”

Quinn opens his mouth to say- 

What was he gonna say? What the _hell_ is he supposed to say to that? ‘Oh haha, funny you mention it but actually _you’re my problem_ ’.

No way. Not when Thatch is looking at him like that. Not when Quinn is a bit afraid Thatch is about to start begging him to go back to normal, or whatever.

“Sure,” He mumbles. “Yeah. We can- I’m sorry Thatch I really am I- it was- the team thought- I just freaked out. I didn’t mean to make you think that it was your fault.”

Because it’s not. It’s not Thatch’s fault that Quinn didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. It’s not Thatch’s fault that Quinn can’t communicate all that well, and it’s certainly not Thatch’s fault that Quinn’s gotten so reliant on his dreams that he can’t do anything of potential great importance in his life unless he’s seen it first.

“Quinner, it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me, I just- I just want to be friends again.”

He jerks his head up, eyes wide. Thatch is staring right back, face nearly unreadable.

“Just friends?” Quinn repeats. “You want to...really?” A bright strum of hope reverberates through his chest. He smiles. “We can- yeah, absolutely, we can- you’re sure though?”

“Jesus Q,” Thatch rolls his eyes but his voice is gentle. “That’s all I want.”

Quinn nearly passes out with relief. 

_‘Just friends’_ he thinks. Just friends, not dating and so none of those other expectations that would come with dating. No pressure at all. He can still nap over Thatch’s place too. They boys will sleep at each other’s places all the time, that’s not an exclusive dating type of activity. 

He can’t believe he managed to establish that they are not dating while also regaining their friendship without actually having said anything towards either of those goals.

“Is that...okay?” Thatcher’s voice pulls him out of his head. Quinn answers him by stepping forward quickly and enveloping him in a hug. 

Thatch laughs quietly. “Take that as a yes.” Quinn smiles to himself. Which is of course right when someone walks by the room. There’s a delighted gasp followed by someone who sounds a lot like Virts yelling _‘Huggy bear!’_ In a high pitched tone. 

Quinn groans and feels Thatch laugh, his face pressed to the goalie’s chest. 

“You’ve solidly cemented that nickname buddy,” Thatch says with a pat to his shoulder. 

Quinn laughs, because it’s better than crying. They separate and Thatch steers him towards the door, talking about lunch plans and what new series he wants to start, and Quinn, feeling lighter than he has in weeks, figures- yeah. He can do this.

**Author's Note:**

> *sheds tear* again so sorry for the wait i really hoped you liked the start of it :)))))) 
> 
> {{spoilery warning for part one: jack gets injured when he's younger and Quinn is there, his parents kind of blame him for it. Quinn definitely harbors guilt about it.}}


End file.
